I have a new less than year old KitchenAid dishwasher that has been nothing but headaches. It is one of the better "30" series and cost over $1,000. Control board went out, wrong one sent numerous times, basically a 4 month nightmare. Then the top rack broke and had to be repaired. Broke several glasses in the process. We took the thing out and I have been hand washing dishes. They are at least clean now. I also have had a basic classic KitchenAid and it was O.K. but not thrilling. Dishwashers need water (wow, what a concept) and power to clean dishes. I am NOT impressed with ANY of the new dishwashers, or their reviews. I would not take one if you gave me one free. Some people have had fires, and deal with smells. I find it ridiculous that any of the Whirlpool family dishwashers tell you to use Afresh in their dishwashers to cover up odors. Instead of fixing the problem let's just use a chemical to hide it. How disgusting! I have bought a Hobart made KitchenAid KDS-19 in good shape to restore, and am going to buy another old Hobart KitchenAid that has been refurbished, as well as another one locally that is ready to install. I am going to have spares as I will not ever, and I mean ever, buy another new one unless something drastic changes with the junk available in this country now. The poor quality and regulations have ruined them as far as I am concerned. Our appliance dealer said he hated to sell dishwashers, but said KitchenAid did better than most. He told us Miele service was terrible, particularly in our area, and that he personnally found the KitchenAids to be better overall. This is a large high end appliance dealer in a major city. If the Miele owners get upset over that, sorry. Get yourself a nice vintage dishwasher. You can even get nice stainless panels made from quality stainless...not the junk that is on many of the appliances now.

18/10 is (without looking it up to be sure) one of the 300 series stainless steels, so I believe there shouldn't be much harm using it. As I recall, 300 series steels are non-magnetic. Check the cooling air emitted by your cooktop when using this vessel and compare its temperature with using some other vessel to double-check that the coils are not running excessively hot. In any case, if they were the cooktop should be designed to shut down. If the vessel material poorly concentrates field lines, i.e., isn't very inductive, perhaps because it is too thin, the heat generated in the coils will be less than with optimal vessel material due to poorer coupling on the other side of the virtual transformer that is the induction circuit. However, overall, the efficiency of heating the vessel will be worse than otherwise. That is, the waste heat is lower, but the waste heat fraction is higher. I have an old Revere Ware pan labeled 1L/2Qt [must have been a pre-metric liter or pre-Elizabethan quart, but I'm pretty sure one can't put 2 qts into it]. It is thin stainless steel (probably 400 series) and at least modestly magnetically susceptible. It brings water to a boil reasonably fast (2m20s at 80% fill). Maybe your vessel was made by Cro-Magnons who were poor spellers. kas

To second what laat said, there was a discussion of cracked cast-iron last summer with a recommendation of ramping-up induction when pre-heating cast iron grills, griddles and pans. Link is below. Same thing might also be said, btw, for putting cold cast iron pots over gas burners and in fireplaces, too. OTOH, I've never heard or seen anything about having to ramp-up high heat with other cookware on induction stoves. I've never had any problem going to max heat with stainless stockpot full of liquid. For other kinds of cooking, I don't feel the need to run max-heat and then turn down as some people like to do. I've pretty much always picked my intended heat setting and just used that with induction. For me, it is a practical matter rather than a "thou shalt not" kind of thing. For me, the pans seem to heat up plenty fast enough on induction without my needing to mash the throttle to the floor and burn the tires in a launch from a standing start. mmhmmgood Your question about whether your situation was freakishly bad luck and unlikely to repeat or if getting another KA would be endlessly repeating the thing known to fail? No, it was not freakish bad luck but odds are pretty good that you won't get another cooktop that suffers from infant mortality. You are playing the odds rather than, as Einstein put it, insanely repeating actions known to be useless failures. I say your experiencing the defect and endlessly delayed and poor warranty service was not freakish. First, there are frequent reports and irate complaints about outsourced warranty being absurdly slow and lacking competence. It is a pervasive problem these days for pretty much all brands of appliances. The chances of that happening again are, unfortunately, significant. I can only suggest trying to research service providers in your area and seeing if you can get a different (and better rated) company if something else happens. Second, what happend to you was not freakish because KA has had a higher defect rate that many other brands of electrical stoves and cooktops. According to what I recall from the recent annual surveys of members of Consumer Reports, KitchenAid electric stoves running something like a 15% defect rate, That is about double the rates for GE and, strangely enough, Whirlpool branded electric stoves. (I say "strangely" because Whirlpool owns KA and a lot of the appliances come out of the same productions lines). Some of the high defect rate for KA was undoubtedly from the problems with KA's self-cleaning ovens frying over-temp breakers and circuit boards. IIRC, the KA cooktops ran a lower rate of defects, around 8%, which is only marginally higher than for other major brands (which ran about 6% or 7%). If the rate for induction cooktops is the same as for other KA electric cooktops, then roughly 1 in 12 owners have serious problems but the other 92% do not. Chances are pretty good that a new KA cooktop will be fine for you for the next few years. Of course, statistics like this are of no comfort when you are the one who gets whacked with a double whammy. But,, what do really have to lose --- that you would not be losing anyway --- if you are unlucky enough to get a second frail unit? Since, you were happy with the KA unit when it worked, and really want another induction unit without shelling out for an upgrade to a new unit, I say the odds are in your favor. Get the replacement and let us know things work out. Here is a link that might be useful: crackedcast iron griddle on induction This post was edited by JWVideo on Sat, Sep 14, 13 at 14:44

The temperature controls available on some induction cooktops, whether the cooktops are expensive or cheaper than you want to deal with, measure the temperature of the metal being inductively heated, not the temperature of the water inside. To heat the water in your lifetime, the metal has to be hotter than the water it is heating. A probe like thermometer from a scientific lab supply company (high end approach) or the nice little inexpensive metal thermometer that Upton Tea sells (low end, but adequate) will better measure the water temperature. Even this is a point measurement, as the water temperature is not uniform when heating a container from the bottom. However, if your heating process is consistent, you will be able to learn what final mixed temperature you will end up with for a specific dynamic temperature measured during a heating operation. My Demeyere kettle used on a particular hob on my induction cooktop provides a spout level measurement during heating that is about 10 degrees lower than the average water temperature when the water temperature has equalized in the kettle. So if I wanted 190F I would shut off the hob when the thermometer read 180F. (I also know how long this takes, and can set a timer to alarm in time to check the temperature approaching the desired temperature and cut the hob power when it reaches that point.) The time (and to a lesser degree the temperature difference between dynamic and static) will change if the hob is more or less powerful than the one I've "calibrated" to by observation. kas